Tale of the tape: how does city council attendance stack up?

Mayor Peggy Breeden is the only member of the current Ridgecrest City Council who has had perfect attendance her entire time in office.

In the interest of complete election coverage, the Daily Independent decided to check the attendance records of the three candidates in next week's election who currently serve on city council: Mayor Peggy Breeden, Mayor Pro Tempore James Sanders and Vice Mayor Lori Acton.Breeden and Sanders are running for mayor, Acton is running for her seat on council again.

Here's how it stacked up. In 2015 and 2016, Acton missed 8 meetings total and Sanders missed 10. Both cite serious reasons for their absences. Breeden, as mentioned earlier, has not missed a single meeting. (Council members Michael Mower and Eddie Thomas also had absences during this time, but they will not be detailed here.)

For purposes of comparison, when members of congress are tracked for their attendance and voting records the median percentage of missed votes was 2.2 percent for members of the House of Representatives and 1.7 percent for senators as of Jan. 25, 2016―according to Tessa Boyce of Inside Gov citing GovTrack.

The following numbers are for council attendance only for 2015 and 2016―the period of time all three candidates have served. It is worth noting, however, that there is at least one vote at every regular council meeting. (Absences listed include special meetings.)

Here, then, are the numbers:

According to information from City Hall, Acton had three absences in 2015: Feb. 18, April 1, and Sept. 16. She had five so far in 2016: Jan. 28, Feb. 3, March 16, April 6 and July 6.

Acton told the Daily Independent Friday that she missed council meetings due to unavoidable person circumstances. Acton was the victim of domestic violence and spent 18 days in the hospital. She also was unavailable for meetings due to required court appearances related to the case. She also told the Daily Independent she has missed council meetings due to being out of town on city business.

Sanders had eight absences in 2015: March 4, May 20, June 17, July 1, Sept. 16, Oct. 21 Nov. 18 and Dec. 2. He had two absences so far in 2016: March 16 and April 20. (Information from City Hall initially indicated Sanders missed the Jan. 20 and April 6 meetings, but the minutes indicate he came in late to both meetings.)

Sanders told the Daily Independent via email Friday that he missed meetings due to important family or work responsibilities. “The bottom line is that I've only missed meetings due to medical issues or because I've been on travel working on solutions to give our men and women in the [Navy] the tools they need to defend our nation. I don't think either one of those reasons needs scrutiny or criticism,” he said.

For more information on past Ridgecrest City Council meetings, see http://ridgecrest-ca.gov/media-vault.